Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
In the players’ base in Yang City on Earth.
Ji Ye, who hadn’t logged off in a long time, checked the forum of the Land of Inheritance for news about the Great Darkness right after he returned to Earth.
Of course, he didn’t search with the keywords such as “doom” or “darkness”. He simply browsed through the trending topics.
“Dragon City Defeats the Invading Mermaids and Mermen and Defends the Glory of the Best Settlement!”
“Earth’s Best Gamer! The Master of Dragon City Has Killed Old Demon Black Mountain and Green Flood Dragon in a Row. Is He Already Legendary?”
…
Many of the posts on the top were battle reports about Dragon City.
While the players of Dragon City weren’t allowed to log off often or reveal information on the forum at random, a lot of players had died in the battle, and many even secretly live-streamed the battle at the cost of Rare Honor on the battlefield!
Therefore, the battle received a lot of attention on Earth the moment it began.
Especially since this battle happened when the main troops of Dragon City were attacking Old Demon Black Mountain. They had to deal with two formidable enemies at the same time.
Old Demon Black Mountain, who rode an enormous mountain and couldn’t be killed even by a nuclear bomb, the green Flood Dragon whose clone already suppressed Dragon City, and the mermaids and mermen who had raised the ocean to drown the city were all unimaginably horrifying beings for the ordinary people on Earth who weren’t even players!
Furthermore, even the players who had been killed and were still forbidden from logging in felt desperate too, because those powers were beyond their imagination.
Therefore, when the heroes failed to return in time and Dragon City had disadvantages, a lot of posts immediately appeared on the forum.
For example, “Dragon City Is so Arrogant That It Sends All Its Troops to the Front Line. As a Result, the Enemy Takes Advantage of Its Weak Defense”, “They Don’t Know Anything About Military Strategies. They Became the Best Settlement Because of Luck”, “Are They Really the Best Settlement From Earth?”, “Our Settlement Only Advanced One Week Later Than Them. Why Are They the Best?”.
Those criticisms were mostly posted in other languages.
Human beings were complicated. The Land of Inheritance was about the competition of different species and also that within a species.
Otherwise, why would the settlements be classified according to countries, regions, and cultural backgrounds?
Many foreigners were unhappy to see Dragon City as Earth’s best settlement. They gloated when it was about to fall.
In the end, the news that “Dragon City’s Settlement Is Destroyed” almost made it to the top three on the first page!
Of course, their faces were slapped hard when Dragon City turned the tide and routed the enemies. In particular, when Ji Ye turned into the Five-Clawed Golden Dragon and killed the Colorful Dragon, every person in Chidragon felt proud.
“Dragon City is the best! Chidragon is the best!”
“Where are the clowns that jumped up and down? Come on out now!”
Hundreds of millions of people posted on the forum crazily and replied to all the threads about Dragon City like a carnival. The forum server lagged a little bit even though it had been upgraded with the technologies from the Land of Inheritance.
“If I divulge the information about the Great Darkness right now, the forum will probably explode!”
Inside the base, Ji Ye shook his head and thought to himself.
He wasn’t really going to do that.
If he were to expose the news of the Great Darkness, no one on Earth would ever be in the mood for a carnival. He would rather not ruin their fun.
On the other hand, Ji Ye did not like those who live-streamed the battles, especially when the Rare Honor was likely associated with the “tickets”.
It seemed that he would have to discipline the players of Dragon City after he logged on.
“The Hidden Leaf Village settlement from Jaipen and the Gotham settlement from Ameagle have both passed the advancement test. There are a hundred Transcendent settlements from Earth now!”
After reading a lot of threads about Dragon City, Ji Ye finally found the information he needed.
A settlement from Jaipen had reached the Transcendent level, and one from Ameagle did too. As a result, Earth had a three-digit number of Transcendent settlements!
“Only a hundred?
“It’s a lot fewer than I thought.
“It seems that A Hundred Vying Barges is truly a lot harder than the Ten-Species Competition.”
That was only natural, not just because “hundred” was ten times greater than “ten”, but also because the competitors in A Hundred Vying Barges were all winners of the Ten-Species Competition. None of them were easy to deal with!
Besides, “hundred” was only metaphorical, and there were far more competitors.
Also, in this phase, the settlements that advanced later would encounter more difficulties.
It was because if a settlement’s competitor advanced into the Transcendent level first in A Hundred Vying Barges, the settlement would have to split some of its power of providence to “test” the competitor. If its competitor successfully advanced, it would lose this part of power of providence while its competitor would be enhanced.
The settlement that advanced earlier became more powerful because of the additional power of providence. The following settlements might be faced with Transcendent villains from this settlement’s power of providence during the test!
It also meant that as time went by, the likelihood of advancement would dwindle.
According to the statistics of the Confederation Office, about five thousand settlements from Earth remained on the Land of Inheritance.
“Maybe only five hundred of them will reach the Transcendent level in the end. There were more than half a million settlements at the beginning, and 99% were eliminated.”
Ji Ye’s heart felt rather heavy.
The settlements that had endured to this day were powerful and had many famous heroes.
For example, Guan City’s Mount Shu settlement, Star Wars settlements, the Winterfell settlement, etc.
However, at this moment, none of these settlements had a chance to be the first one to make the advancement in their river.
It also meant that the settings of their continents would be unrelated to humankind. Even if they did become Transcendent, they could hardly pass the Road to Legendary.
“Maybe only several dozen settlements, or even fewer, will become Legendary!”
Ji Ye truly felt a lot of pressure.
Half a million was narrowed down to fifty in the Legendary level.
As for the Mythological level, maybe the competition would be even fiercer, and even Dragon City was not guaranteed to succeed!
“Huh?”
While browsing on the forum, Ji Ye saw a new post entitled “Shock! A Player Is Reborn in a Cannibal Settlement and Then Boiled and Eaten Alive!”.
“What’s happening?
“Will a player be born in an alien settlement instead of losing their qualification if they die too many times?”
Ji Ye considered for a moment.
Wouldn’t it be even crueler in such a case?
When a player died, they couldn’t keep anything except their Rare Honor (The beta testers had one chance to keep their talent abilities)!
It meant that they were completely vulnerable when they were reborn, and there was not a chance to survive.
When the Great Darkness did arrive, the players would still choose to be reborn for a slim chance of survival, right?
It was better to be treated as a pet or food by aliens than to wait to die…
So, the privilege of rebirth was not necessarily a good thing, but it might discourage the players from fighting!
“After a third death, you chose to ‘revive’ with regret. After a flash, you arrived at the ritual temple of a simple shrine in underwear that only covered your private parts.
“Everybody around you cheered with uncanny sounds. People in shabby clothes rushed out and surrounded you with excitement and hospitality in their eyes.
“Some even knelt before the altar and shouted aloud.
“Although you couldn’t understand their language, you could sense their genuine happiness.
“You watched them start a fire, put a pot on it, and sing and dance. They even sent two hot girls to undress you and clean your body…
“You thought that you would live like an emperor as a Chosen One in this primitive settlement until they put salt, spices, and pepper into the pot and all looked at you with a weird smile…
“What the heck is this?”
Reading the surprisingly weird narration from the readers’ perspective, Ji Ye frowned and realized that the content of the article didn’t match its title.
In fact, a player was reborn in a settlement that was conquered by the cannibals of Amazon. One of the players in the settlement was imprisoned.
Because the player didn’t have enough Rare Honor to be revived, he was unwilling to kill himself, which would make him lose his qualification as a player. As a result, the summoning function of the settlement core was on the whole time.
When new players came in, they became food to the cannibals!
A lot of people had been harmed by one person’s selfishness.
“I can’t believe this!
“This is another reason why I can’t publicize the news about the Great Darkness.”
Ji Ye’s heart was even heavier.
He always thought that the villains on the Land of Inheritance were meant to deliver EXP and equipment to players.
But in retrospect, it might be one of the Land of Inheritance’s tests for a civilization!
If a civilization was too vicious, it would probably be destroyed by its own members first.
Browsing on the forum for a while, Ji Ye didn’t find any information on the Great Darkness.
It seemed that Dragon City was indeed the first one to receive the message.
So, without hesitation, Ji Ye picked up the phone in the room and called Senior Brother Zhou, who was in charge of the player base in Yang City.
“Senior Brother Zhou, can you contact the chief of the Confederation Office?”
…
Several hours later, a special plane landed at the airport of Yang City.
Dozens of minutes later, cars with a huge retinue drove into the player base of Yang City!
“Young Friend Ji, I’ve heard so much about you!”
In the meeting room, a tall and slim old man, who seemed energetic, shook hands with Ji Ye with a smile.
“Mr. President, I didn’t expect you to come in person.”
Ji Ye looked at the old man excitedly because he was the most powerful man in Chidragon at this moment.
He didn’t realize that the man would come to Dragon City in person.
“Young Feng Ji, thank you for your information. You’ve prevented us from being caught in a passive situation!”
Next to the tall and slim old man was another old man who looked gentle but rather worried.
He was the director of the Confederation Office in Chidragon, as well as the deputy president of the country.
As a man who was familiar with political affairs, he already thought of the significant impact of the news.
He had been having a remote conference with the Confederate Government through the latest holographic technologies. He came to Yang City with the president the moment the meeting was over!
Obviously, they both thought highly of Ji Ye’s information.
In fact, the information indeed deserved attention. It concerned the life and death of everybody on Earth.
“What a shame. They voted to cancel the player base at the meeting of the Confederate Government today. I told them that we needed to rethink the decision.”
To be honest, the deputy president was rather worried.
The Confederate Government canceled the player base mainly because “human rights” and “freedom” mattered a lot in western cultures.
Many people thought that the player base was the Confederate Government’s plot. As the players grew stronger and stronger, they formed alliances with some powerful groups and bolstered the cancellation of the player base. It was very easy to cancel the player base, but it wasn’t as easy to reestablish it.
Well, unless…
“Young friend Ji, I have a personal request that I hope you can consider.”
The deputy president raised his head and looked at Ji Ye.
“I’m all ears.”
“I hope you can keep the news of the Great Darkness a secret for a while. I mean, let’s keep the information within Chidragon.
“Don’t worry. We will release it to the public eventually, but we need time to prepare.”
The deputy president looked at Ji Ye solemnly.
“Well… No problem.”
Ji Ye nodded.
As a native of Chidragon, he certainly wouldn’t say no to that.
In fact, it was also the reason why he contacted the leaders through the Confederation Office.
Although the Confederation Office was under the Confederation Government in name, it was really maintained by the governments of individual countries.
However, if they did that, the other countries would probably blame Chidragon when the news was learned later. After all, the Confederation Office was founded for the purpose of sharing information.
If Chidragon was to block the information, even if only for a few days, some of the other countries might not be able to react in time, and there would be huge losses.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take the blame by then.
“When the Confederate Government was first founded, Chidragon already suffered enough criticisms and doubts from the western countries, didn’t it?”
The president smiled and declared proudly.
He wasn’t tall, but he sounded extremely firm.
“Young Friend Ji!
“Chidragon will fully support the development of Dragon City. You can contact us directly if you need anything!”
Both the president and his deputy were extremely sincere.
With their promise, the loan was naturally not a problem at all.
Because the news was temporarily kept a secret in Chidragon, it was impossible to apply for a loan with the Honor as a guarantee.
Furthermore, since the news was not fully publicized, Dragon City could not receive the enormous Honor that it should get. However, as compensation, it received “Supportive Funding for Promising Settlements” from the state government!
After taking care of the monetary problem, Ji Ye didn’t waste any more of his time and chose to get back online.
